I have too many bad ideas for fics @paintersknife - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag (2024)

Bereft

You’re not sure if the memory is even real, or a half recalled dream, twisted by your own despair and longing into the reality that you desperately wish for. You think you remember the fleeting feeling of his lips brushing your forehead, of words whispered in your ears in that liminal space between dreams and wakefulness.

“Forgive me.”

The only thing you know is that he’s gone. Others have noticed his absence as well, but it’s easy for them to brush it off as the same as one of his countless routine disappearances. A business trip. A sabbatical. A conference. A vacation. Everyone has an explanation for you, but when you see the concern and pity in their gazes, the unspoken question of ‘didn’t he tell you?’, you stop talking about it.

So you go through the motions, as if you’re also a ghost that isn’t really there. Time has no hold over you, but now it seems to stretch on infinitely, each solitary second an entire lifetime.

Are the words that twist in on themselves in the restless nights like unfulfilled infinity even real? “You’ll understand in time,” you think he said, but you still don’t understand. You can’t understand anything, least of all why he isn’t here by your side, his graceful fingers brushing your hair out of your face as he whispers quiet comfort. All you have are your tangled sheets that don’t provide any warmth and your empty bed that seems so so big now that you’re its sole inhabitant.

Dreams now bring anguish instead of bliss. All you can find of him there are his faint afterimages, dull, muted, lifeless as if all the colour in the world has been drained from them. It’s a curse, to be one step behind him where before you would walk by his side, his stride held so you could keep up, something he did only for you. Some days you dream of your shared memories, of the moments you shared with him in Santorini, Pettman, Harp, all islands like the two of you were, adrift in the vastness of the universe. But that was when you had each other, before he left you with only memories and regret.

Some nights you can almost feel his familiar presence, like how you used to when you were merely temporarily parted, and you’re almost sure that soon you’ll be gazing into those lilac eyes and their untold depths. He’s a traveller too, and far more experienced than you, so the illusion always shatters, you’re always a mere step behind him, but that step might as well be infinity. Those nights you wake with tears soaking your pillow and a sadness that curls itself in your chest, settling there to roost. Every night you pray you won’t dream, sometimes you wish you simply wouldn’t wake.

“I have to do this… for you.”

How can this be for your own good if you haven’t felt whole since? Like there’s a rent in your soul that can never heal, like how a newly missing limb leaves you collapsed each time you forget its absence.

But something deep inside you knows, has always known that he isn't coming back.

Not now. Not ever.

The only thing you can do is spend the rest of your life chasing after a mirage, an apparition, for the words you desperately want to believe you heard, but will never hear again.

“I love you,”

Infinity

The first time he watches her die, it feels like the world is ending around him. It’s sudden, a freak accident as he’s walking her home after a date, the car careening into her before either of them can even react. Dimly he’s aware of other people screaming and shouting for help, but deep in his core he knows it won't come in time. The logical part of his mind is aware he's going into shock, but his vision has shrunk until all he can see is her and the pool of blood that he can't staunch no matter what he does. She's calm, why is she so calm? Her eyes look so sad as they stare up at him and he's helplessly holding her tight as he clutches for her hands, whispering to her over and over so she never feels alone, not even for a second. Faintly, he can hear someone crying, and at the back of his mind he thinks don't cry, you won't have to suffer much longer, not realising the sound is coming from himself. There are screams that die in his throat, swallowed raw and thrashing. His blood pounds in his ears, in his head, as if it’s struggling to break free from him, to go with her, wherever she’s going. He doesn't realise that she's already going cold, doesn’t register much of anything until his vision seems to go black.

“Hey,” he sees her text on the phone in his hand. “So where do you want to go this weekend?” His phone is dropped as if it was a burning coal, his fingers shaking as he reaches up to remove his glasses and bury his face in his hands. Tears that he doesn’t feel wet his palm as his chest heaves with wracking sobs that he had been suppressing the entire time. It was too vivid to be a premonition, too detailed to be a vision. The terror he felt as he lost her finally starts to drain away like a bad dream, replaced by a feeling of relief so strong that he stumbles backwards and slumps onto his bed. Every deity that he can name is thanked for this second chance, every God that he can think of has a prayer whispered to them as a promise that he won’t waste it. With shaking hands he picks up the phone and types her a quick reply, already planning to make sure she is never put in that situation again.

He’s on edge all the way to the time that he remembers the accident happening, laughing off her attempts to ask him if everything is alright. When they reach her home he finally relaxes, giving her a quick kiss before watching her go up the steps to her door. He watches horrified as she slips on the top step, landing awkwardly and hard, too hard. She doesn’t get back up.

“Hey,” he sees her text on the phone in his hand. “So where do you want to go this weekend?”

The tenth time it happens he can feel something break inside of him. As if he’s lost some insignificant but irreplaceable thing that kept him whole. There’s nothing he can do to stop it, it’s as if reality is contradicting itself, simultaneously wanting her dead but refusing to accept it. Each time is something different, some freak occurrence that could only be described as ‘one in a million’. An electrical cable snaps. A rotten tree falls. A bathtub drowning. Electrical malfunction. Nothing makes sense, no pattern stands out to him, and even if it did, he knows he has no way of making any notes for himself, no way to keep track of the things he needs to do or avoid except with his mind, and how grateful he is to have the intellect that he was blessed with that this is at least something that he is capable of doing. But it hurts, it hurts so much to have to commit everything to memory, every hurt that he sees on her, every moment of her pain. He can’t forget. Her life depends on it. He keeps trying. He must.

Soon he doesn’t break down anymore when he returns to the beginning of the loop. He feels monstrous, wondering if he’s becoming numb to it all after all, but each time he can sense that he’s losing just a little more of himself, a feeling that always surprised him because he was so sure that there wasn’t even anything left of him to lose anymore. Once, he told her about the loop in an attempt to warn her, but the look she gave him (that he can’t forget, won’t ever forget) ensured he wouldn’t ever bring it up again.

How many times has it been? Does he even remember how many times he has been forced to face the futility of his own actions as he watches the life drain out of her eyes? He’s keenly aware of what constitutes humanity, of that invisible border between life and death, one that he’s seen her cross countless times. It's strange how little separates ‘person’ from ‘corpse’. He thinks it odd that there’s always fear in her eyes at the end, but it never seems to be for herself, almost as if leaving him alone scares her more than her own fast approaching mortality, more than the pain of having her life ripped from her far too soon. He doesn’t understand why. After all, he knows that when he next opens his eyes he’ll be right back at the start, ready to restart his doomed quest.

He knows he can’t stop, even if he wanted to. To give up would be to lose her forever, and watching her slip away at the end of each cycle is at least not that. A future without her is no future at all, and he would gladly suffer through a hundred years of this torment– a thousand– anything to give her time back to her. He doesn’t want to stop. Will never want to stop, not even if she curses him with her dying breath. He’ll endure it all for her, even if it kills him. Maybe it already has.

It's purgatory, but even in the midst of his endless torment, there's a shred of hope. Hope that there's an end to this, a secret that he can unravel, a code he can crack, that with perfection in every action he can release them both. And though he has to watch it over and over and over again he knows that he can still go back. Even if it’s just a second longer, he’s grateful for every moment he has by her side.

What he doesn't think about, can't think about, is that hope is sometimes the cruellest thing of all.

“Hey,” he sees her text on the phone in his hand. “So where do you want to go this weekend?”

Reset 564. Failure.

Begin again.

Because I had the idea about what if Clarence was trapped in a loop à la Cael in Godheim, and I think he would probably ruin himself to fix it.

Peace of Mind

Mild implied NSFW Cael/MC, nothing explicit

It's been a while since the disaster that was their first night together, and by this point there are no more awkward elbows, no more teeth crashing into each other, no more soft ‘ow’s when someone accidentally gets caught on someone else's hair (usually Cael's). Now they've settled into a content sort of rhythm, exploring each other, searching for that special spot or angle that elicits that moan or that sharp intake of breath. There's comfort there in the trust that's been built up over this time, pleasure to be found in devotion, shown through actions so no words are needed.

She was in one of her exploratory moods, he notes with amusem*nt. He doesn't mind her hands as they wander all over his body, tracing his anatomy as if she was sketching him. But when he feels her lips on his ear, her teeth grazing his earlobe, he finds he can no longer form a coherent thought, possessed by the desire to have her, to feel every inch of her until the lines between them blur and they are left as a single existence. He indulges himself in her like a parched man offered an oasis, and he collapses atop her when he's spent, exhaustion claiming both of them.

When he finally comes to his senses, he tugs a strand of her hair away from where it was caught between her lips, tucking it away as he watches her sleep. When she lifts her hand to brush at her face, he flinches away in shock.

He's confused at first, staring at the bruising that has started to colour her wrists. Dimly he recalls that a hand lifted to push on his chest, the same hand that he had grabbed to pin above her head. Had she been trying to push him away? His stomach flips when he stares at the bite marks on her shoulder, the red fading now, but the outline remaining to remind him of his sins. There are a scattering of bruises further down her body, and he vaguely recalls fingertips pressed into soft skin, gripping hard as if to make sure that she was real and in his arms.

His vision narrows and suddenly he's in the freezing cold of Godheim, the wind howling as he watches her blood stain the argent snow. He never felt the chill then, but now it feels as if his entire body has been encased in ice. How many times did he watch her fall? How many times did he sit by her, holding her hand in his as the winter of his own creation sapped the last remaining warmth, counting down the seconds until time would reset and he would watch her demise yet again?

At least those times he could retain some sense of detachment, since none of those times were the result of his actions, always others, never him. Now he's staring at what his own hands have wrought. He's dangerous to her.

He's already half out of the bed when she calls his name.

“Where are you going?” Her voice is still slurred with sleep, and he can feel her movements behind him as she drags herself up and comes closer to him. She lifts a hand to his cheek, brushing away the lock of hair that loves to fall across his face, but he shies away from her. I'm unworthy of your touch he thinks, “I hurt you,” he says.

“Listen to me,” she says, reaching out again when he refuses to look at her. “Cael.” Her voice is like a command, and he instinctively turns to her, back ramrod straight, a habit formed from spending so much of his life under the command of someone else.

“Look at me,” her voice is gentle again, but there's a firmness there, and he gets the strange feeling it's for his benefit. The hand cupping his face tilts his chin up, and he can see her eyes, sparkling in the dim light. “If I didn't like it, do you think I would have allowed it to happen?”

“But-” the protests die on his lips when her grip tightens slightly and he looks at her helplessly. In the dark with the sheets clutched up to her chest, she looks so small. Fragile.

“How could I-”

“Cael.” Again she orders him into silence. “You wouldn’t hurt me.” She lets her statement hang between them for a moment before the fierceness in her eyes seems to add: You can’t hurt me.

There's something in that gaze, in the way she sets her jaw when she insists on having things her way, in the way her fingers refuse to let him avert his eyes. When had she become so strong? He knows she isn't powerless, far from it. With the illustra at her fingertips, she could easily destroy any normal human, and at the very least, defend herself against him. The realisation cuts through the haze of his guilt, dispersing it like mist.

“I never could.”

His heart swirls with a mix of relief, gratitude, and something more complex as he finally reaches for her hand, returning the reassuring squeeze that she gives him. She isn't that child crying for her lost mother anymore. She's become so much more than that, become so much more to him. Her existence is something he could never have imagined. A new colour on his palette that suffused his entire world with brightness so he wondered if he had ever really seen the world before it. Not only that, he knows that she can be his equal. A partner. It's more than he ever thought he could have.

Sensing that she managed to get through to him, she pushes him back down so they can get comfortable again, settling down facing each other, the heat of their bodies keeping them warm under the thin sheet.

She's quiet for a little while, then her eyes flick away from his, hesitant as she works up the courage to breathe her thoughts into reality. “If anything, I'd like that more often,” He's entranced by the way the blush blooms across her collarbones when suddenly he hears her snort and he tilts his head, waiting for her to tell him what she found so funny.

“I think you're the one who needs first aid more than me.” He follows her gaze down to his shoulder where there are red crescents gouged into his pale skin, the sting of them only now registering in his brain.

He laughs, feeling her shoulders shake as she joins in. He watches her eyelids gradually begin to grow heavy with sleep as they let out the last of their mirth. She holds onto his hand as if to make sure he isn't going to try and leave her again. This time, he has no intention to. Not ever again.

First part might be slightly OOC since Cael probably isn't bad at it, but it's just funnier to me this way

Simulacrum

Her face is the first thing he sees when he wakes up. It’s familiar somehow, but he can’t put his finger on it, as if the memory is shrouded in cobwebs, an old thing, desiccated and forgotten. (Where has he seen her? When has he seen her?)

“What’s your name?” she asks, but it’s clear that she isn’t really talking to him, judging by the way her hands reach out to grab his wrist, turning it to face her as she reads the serial number printed there. (Was that always there?)

“It’s Cl-” (It’s the one thing he knows.)

She cuts him off, dropping his hand as she reaches past him to pull out a thick manual from somewhere deeper in the pod, still refusing to look him in the eye. “03L-3103.”

There’s an expression on her face that he’s never seen before, but somehow it makes something deep inside of him hurt.

Setting herself down on the edge of the pod, she starts to flip through the book, leaving him in relative silence as he pushes himself up and out of it. She thinks that he doesn’t notice the small sob that she lets out while her face is obscured by the manual. (He does.)

“It says here that you have a memory chip and an emotion simulation module,” she says quietly after a time. Her voice is a little thick, as if she’s not used it in a while. “It also says that it might take a while for your memories to stabilise. So you should grab what you need and come with me. I can’t just leave you here.”

He goes with her, slowly shaking off the stiffness in his mechanical joints from being so long confined. It feels familiar as he walks with her and something buried deep within his memories stirs. (But was there always a distance between them like this?)

Fragments of recollections begin to coalesce in his mind, enough for him to know that they meant something to each other, once. It isn’t enough to make her look at him, isn’t enough to make him ask her about it.

Later while he’s helping to help her set up her camp, he catches her stealing glances at him with a faraway look in her eyes like she’s looking through him and at someone else. (Who is that expression meant for?)

“I hope I'm not making you uncomfortable,” he says, keeping his voice as gentle as he possibly can. She looks away, guilt in her expression. (What does she have to be guilty about?)

The silence between them seems to stretch on forever.

“You aren’t him,” she says eventually, her voice cracking. “He’s dead. He’s long dead and you’re just a copy with his face.” (He’s always known. A perfect copy is still just a copy.)

Her face falls at the harshness of her own words, regret written all over her face as her eyes flick to the floor, as if she’s unable to keep looking at the face of the man she once loved. He doesn’t blame her, after all, he is merely an imitation of something original, a prime version, perfection in all its flaws and he knows he can never attain that purity. All he is to her is someone’s ghost.

What is he to do then, with these memories that aren’t his? With these emotions that feel so vivid that he’s afraid his exoskeleton will burst apart, leaving him the empty shell that she sees him as? Are they even his at all, or are they just lines of code, written and encoded to give him some semblance of substance? Is he merely a collection of silicon and gold, assembled and produced, a puppet pulled by digital strings? If that’s so, where does that leave him?

Tears well up in her eyes, overflowing and streaking their way down her cheeks. It makes his chest ache, but it's such a beautiful sight to him despite that, worth encoding in his memory. Would she even cry for him like she would for the one that she lost? (Is he even worth her tears?)

He can’t help but think that the real Clarence wouldn’t even have these doubts.

Gently he pulls her towards him, wrapping his arms around her when she doesn’t resist. She buries her face in his shoulder, finally letting herself grieve all that she’s lost, all that she’s found.He doesn't know how long their time together will last, but he'll love her as much as she will let him. (It’s what he would have done.)